Dental burr holders or supports are well known in the art, and usually comprise a horizontal supporting body having a plurality of vertically oriented bores, each bore receiving the shank of a burr. These supports are usually placed on the dentist's work tray adjacent the dental chair or on a separate shelf or tray within reach of the dentist or the dental assistant. These supports retain the numerous burrs utilized during the various drilling operations commonly performed by the dentist.
Dental burrs are typically of hardened metal such as stainless steel, the burr being about 2.5 cm. long and about 0.25 cm. in diameter and fixed to a shank to fit the dentist's handpiece. The tips of such dental burrs have different configurations, depending upon their use. Such tip shapes include inverted cones, balls, round-edge or square-edge wheels, flat-end or round-end tapers, flames and cavicuts. In each case, such dental burrs are relatively small and to a degree damageable. Because the different types of burrs are distinguishable only by observing the tip configuration, it is very easy to confuse them and difficult to observe when a burr has been damaged. And it is correspondingly easy for the dentist or dental assistant to pick up the wrong burr or a damaged burr. Such a mistake is costly to the dentist and the patient for at least three reasons. First, the mistake wastes time when time is of the essence, i.e., when the patient is in the dentist's chair and drilling is being performed, the patient then commonly being in pain and usually having nerve ends of the tooth exposed. Second, use of an incorrectly chosen burr can damage the patient's tooth and nerve. Third, use of a burr with unobserved broken or damaged cutting blades increases the patient's discomfort and sometimes causes the tooth to develop craze lines.
Thus, an effective dental burr holder should not only adequately support the burrs but also display them in such fashion that the dentist or dental assistant can make quick, easy and accurate selection and have a maximum opportunity to observe whether the burr is damaged or imperfect. Unfortunately, prior-art holders promote neither speed nor accuracy of burr selection, nor do they aid in detecting damaged or imperfect burrs.
Such prior-art dental burr holders include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,104,650, issued July 2, 1914, to Fries; 3,102,637, issued Sept. 3, 1963, to Scholl; 3,270,416, issued Sept. 6, 1966, to Nassa; and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 242,545, issued Nov. 30, 1976, to Perfect; and the 1976 catalog published by Silverman, Apollo Rd., Plymouth Meeting, Pa. 19462. Each of these prior-art devices discloses a horizontal support having a plurality of vertically oriented bores for receiving the shank of a dental burr.
In addition, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,145,841, issued Aug. 25, 1964, to McGuire and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 222,791, issued Dec. 28, 1971, to Costello disclose hospital trays having a plurality of vertically oriented bores for receiving things such as small cups of medicine. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,366, issued Feb. 22, 1966, to Broda discloses a carrying case for drill bits used for drilling materials such as wood and metal.
Unfortunately, none of these prior art devices provides an environment in which the small, lightweight and visually confusing dental burrs can be quickly, easily and accurately selected by the dentist or dental assistant. In fact, prior-art workers seem not even to have recognized the need for such advantages or the problem of visually distinguishing the burrs in the holder. As recently as January, 1980, a major supplier to the dental trade, recognizing that the holders should be sterilizable by autoclaving, proposed to offer a holder formed of stainless steel and thus presenting a background surface against which the stainless steel burrs would be difficult even to see, let alone distinguish by type.